Moon shot idea that involves sub surface water movement and High mountain storage with mono rail access. Also ability to circulate water from Mississippi Delta to head waters during low water flows to aid in transportation during long term drought.
Would make use of military and civil companies engineering and equipment for their training if we ever are free of war.
One big Idea is to build twin water tunnels near the Mississippi river corridor and pressure water out to bay when flooding occurs, when drought is present re-send the water inside the pipe to headwaters within the drought area to maintain needed water and to keep shipping channels open. Could also send some of the water to high mountain containment to be used as fire suppression readiness.
The system should be set up such as each pipe can be used to send water upstream or downstream as needed. In fact an East West tie in could be integrated secondary with pre-planning to allow needed connections for a T. May make sense to use a low energy nuclear power to drive the turbines since they will have easy cooling. Even a local utility could make use of the flow since it should be constant. It would likely make sense to pump water upstream at least one pipe during normal conditions.